Games have many features, some are good, some are bad, but generally games pull things off alright enough to keep you playing...

But some games get it all wrong, some add horrible fun killing features, or don't add certain critical features either..

Eg: Really difficult monsters that are near impossible to beat, wounds inflicted after combat that cripple your abilities, a complete lack of atmosphere, nothing unique, dull lighting, an awful combat system, or an awful UI...

What in your opinion is the worst mistake a game can make?, the worst feature they can add, or a feature they leave out?..

Personally I'd have to say that a game without Atmosphere is the worst, no music, no interesting sounds, no decent lighting, nothing that gives you any sense its something other than wall paper paste...

One of the worst mistakes, is probably to break it's own rules.

And definitely the lack of atmosphere is a massive crime, such as the dead boring "Hellgate: London".

Also:
Quicktime Events should be burned at the stake.
Slow, unresponsive controls.
Cut-scenes are often unnecessary and feature things far out of place from the 'game' part.
Lack of choice, exploration or alternate tactics (CoD SP).
Bad UI's always get in the way.
RPG's commit many crimes (attacks that miss, often a lack of user input, bland combat, boring movement). I don't see why so few games combine what's good about many RPG's (theme, atmosphere, story, choices, etc) with solid mechanics, especially in the combat department. STALKER is good, and Borderlands is good, and those two feature RPG elements in different ways.

Why? Poorly implemented is poorly implemented. I think Mirror's Edge did a beautiful job with QTE's when trying to disarm the bad guys.

You can't tell me its not a quick time event, the only difference from the next one is that the bad guy flashes red instead of a stupid button showing up on screen.

As far as features that are bad, well, that depends on your definition of a feature. Being specifically bad generally isn't a feature.

But for me, its rarely any specific feature. Any feature could be implemented properly in the right game. Its when a feature shows up that has no right being there, like having a weapon carry limit in a game known for its outrageousness in the past- being originally loved for its over-the-top style, or throwing in a cover mechanic for no other reason than because all the other cool games had it.

Also, not quite a feature, but sloppy weapon handling really bugs me in games, particularly in SP games where ammo placement generally dictates how you use the weapons.

Things like an unnecessarily slow fire rate for something like a semi-automatic starter pistol (or other methods that essentially force you to use a different weapon as soon as you have one, unless the ammo is shared, preventing the ammo drops that will invariably still show up from being useless),

Weapons designed in such a way to force you to use it in a very specific role due to technical reasons (like a shotgun that shoots only a few pellets with outrageous spread and severally short trace range all in the same gun),

And in SP games, weapons that completely outclass previous weapons in the exact same role without either using the same ammo (so you don't see them ammo packs from the now useless gun still being placed in the game with no reason to use it) or having an over abundance/infinite ammo available to use (so that you have no reason, even ammo concerns, to use the old weapons). This is particularly bad in games with a small amount weapons to begin with.

Being stuck to stationary turrets and needing to repeatedly get butchered while slowly remembering exactly where and when each enemy comes.

Escort missions. The only people who love escort missions are developers.

Vehicular combat. This has never been executed well. Being able to blow up a tank with bulletfire is awfully arcady in a military shooter that is supposed to take itself seriously.

Infinite respawning combat sections in a non-sandbox-like game.

Doing something to the protagonist in a cutscene that he could easily have avoided if the player had control. Does it seem likely that in a cutscene one dude pointing a gun at Tank McKillfrag stops Tank in his tracks and has him arrested? Wouldn't Tank just have blasted the dude to bits with his large shotgun if the player had control? Because that is exactly what Tank did to the last 550 enemies he met.

Programmer's observation: I really wish developers would treat damage and health as floating-point numbers instead of integers. That extra .0 will have no effect on the math, however the possibility to use fractions greatly improves moddability.

Clunky, bloated UI. For a good example of very clunky, bloated UI, see Thief 3: Deadly Shadows, for a very good and streamlined UI, see Deus Ex.

@Xav:
Quick-time events as used during cut-scenes mainly. Bloody hell those suck! Where the stupid "Press X now!" with the corresponding 360 controller graphic pops up on the screen, just to scream "LOOK!! YOU'RE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME!!!". And then you fail the event, and have to repeat the same goddamn cut-scene again, in which they change the button you have to press. It blows

It's far less intrusive when it's a game mechanic, context based indicator (like as you say, Mirrors Edge disarming, and Assassins Creed combat), but I don't consider those QTE's. It's worst when the friggin' text and button graphic shows up like that. It removes control/choice from you really, and that shit ain't cool.

@Bjossi:
Agreed with the cut-scene inconsistencies with what you as the player would do, and what the idiot character in the CS does.
And oh god, bloody escort mission too.. Ugh!

Well yeah, those definitely suck, no argument there, buuut--



I don't consider them any different, other than poor implementation and good implementation. They both accomplish the same type of thing in a very similar manner (either you succeed or you fail by pressing the proper button at the proper time), only the fluff surrounding the event changes. To consider them different would be splitting hairs to me, might as well be saying HL style charging stations aren't in the same category as a health pack in terms of health management.

Buuuut.. Those implementations are more like missing with your sniper rifle as a guy passes through your view. The scale of the potential failure and success of those first type of QTE's I mentioned is a far cry from the other. It's a minor, but large difference
When you miss the disarm in ME, you don't just die from failing(do you), similarly in AC, you get hit if you don't counter at the right time, same in Arkham Asylum. But to hinge the continuation of the game on a single QTE in a cut-scene is all wrong. Fluff, perhaps, but massively important distinction i'd say. It's like HL and CoD are both linear shooters; but the small differences are what makes HL a game, and CoD an interactive movie.

Thief 3's UI isn't great, but I've seen worse...

Also I can't stand most turn based games, especially if they are either set in fast-ish game, or if there are so many bloody turns where nothing happens!... Case in point: Si Meier's Civilization, perhaps the dullest game I've ever played.....

Quick time Events are the work of the devil, and I'd agree that Assassin's Creed and mirror's edge don't really count, what you need is to take a look at Resident Evil, that'll get you a good idea, especially with the poorly ported RE4, where you don't know what the button being shown on your screen is: What is button 4?, I'm using a keyboard you damn thing, not a PS controller!!!...

Having to traverse long distances with little or mundane action.
Spawn points being way to fare from ware you last where.
Majority of game geting to/from action.

Deus Ex 2's inventory.
The only game I have ever raged-quit from, not because of actual gameplay.

The Slomo from FEAR MP also always annoyed me. And like, 90% of the time, it wasn't even helpful.

Oh there's quite a few for me:

Escort Missions- Seriously, it's the longest annoying cliche in videogames, especially when bad AI comes into play.

Random Monster Encounters- I hate this feature in RPG games, I just want to be able to walk to the next town without get mobbed by random low level monsters all the time. It's a cliche that needs to be dropped like a hot rock.

Weakened Weapon Sounds- Whenever I want to use a gun, I want to have some oomph in it to know I got some power in it, but when they sound like toys, that's what the gun feels like, a plastic toy. If developers want us to fall in love with their firearms, they need to make it look, feel and sound powerful.

Back to Guard- A common pain in the ass in fighting games, when you want to guard, instead of pressing a simple button, you got to push back on the analog stick. It's stupid if you ask me, because analog sticks can be finicky, because you can push back and accidentally move it diagonally up or down and you can't block. It needs to stop.

100% agreed on the weakened weapon sounds. Someone should compile a list of games that do this right, I would be interested to check out any games on there that I haven't played or heard of.

Serious Sam 3 brought this bad trend up a notch. The guns there don't just sound weak, they get drowned by the monster sounds. The normalizing job is so bad at times that you can't actually be sure that you are even firing a gun. The only gun that sounds even remotely satisfying is the double barrelled shotgun, and maybe the Cannon, I'm sort of both ways on that one.

No, not in all games by far. In one game, the Conan game that came out a year or two ago, you had a QTE to open up just about any door, which was really dumb, but failure simply meant you had to redo it. And it had the whole cut scene thing with the stupid big buttons on the screen too.

In the game Comic Jumper, an awesome game by the way, you got QTEs in one point to run through a building, breaking down doors or knocking down enemies on the way. Failure in those moments means you lose some life, but you keep going.

In ME failure means you're getting shot and you are also not getting that gun. It can be pretty dang pivotal.

And your comparison of HL and CoD is again an example of well executed and poorly excuted features (that feature being a single player experience).

I could argue more, but I guess it does simply comes down to implementation If it gets in the way, or removes choice and control from the player = bad! Resident Evil 5 is a shining example of bad QTE implementation.

Also, agreed on the pathetic gun sounds of many games. Resident Evil is guilty here, as is Serious Sam HD as recent examples.

Indeed, poor gun sounds is an awful trend, one that far too many games follow. It's always refreshing to hear a decent gun though...

Deus Ex had some of the worst gun sounds I've ever heard, especially that assault rifle, *shudder...

Deus Ex is not a game of production values by any stretch, but it is still a fantastic game.

I generally liked Red Faction's weapon sounds, the Rail Driver in particular, it is probably my all time favourite railgun-type weapon, it just feels incredibly good to fire it.

Red Orchestra 2 Killzone 2 and 3 do have really good gun sounds.

Halo, UT2004, Serious Sam 3 are some the worst examples.


QTE's I don't mind up to a certain point, but Clive Barker's Jericho QTE's can jump onto a pointy spike belly first.

I've always loved the sounds of Halo and Red Faction. I'd say the only gun in Halo that sounded weak was the assault rifle, and that thing was actually quite weak.

But I agree that weak gun sounds are just a let down. UT2004's guns were like wet noodles compared to UT99's. UT3's sounds were a step in the right direction though. Additionally, Ballistic's sounds beat the crap out of UT2004, hands down. I usually have to redo my sounds a couple times to give them the required 'oomph' to fit in. In fact, just the other day I overhauled the M781 sound to be more punchy.

Oh, and Deus Ex may have had lackluster weapon sounds, but man did it have good music.

Where to start...
I agree with many of the points made so far.
Game design is one of my favorite topics (duh) and all the ridiculous, daft and fore-head smackingly idiotic features in games are of great interest to me. We actively seek out the bad (and also brilliant) features in games and try to understand how they work and why they are there and I can say, absolutely, that they have an influence on our own game design theory.
I would definitely like to see more discussion and debate on game design on this forum.

You must give Resident Evil 5 a try.

Adding to the QTE hate, I'll say I'm also not fond of the "repeatedly tap button to live" variety.

I think the dividing line on QTEs is basically when it gets in your way and causes frustration. I hate the idea of just having a prompt for you to "press a button". That's the dumbest, most basic, type of game mechanic. It's a simple, unconcealed reflex test. Games should be trying to convince you they are NOT just lights flickering out of a hunk of plastic and wires, so you should not be thinking in buttons and controls like "press 'X'", you should be thinking in actions like "fire gun", "kick bad guy", etc...

Oh, good god, bury and burn them. I usually would like to do much worse to the useless pathetic idiots that need to be protected. Why do developers like them? I can see a bunch of people sitting around a boardroom table saying: "We need some way to help build an emotional connection between the player and this NPC. How about we have them help and look after him/her/it". Well, mission accomplished, I now have very strong feelings of contempt towards him/her/it.

That's not a copy n' paste from RockPaperShotgun is it? Oh god, HELL YEAH! In a game, the player is supposed to make decisions and overcome challenges, not watch while your idiot character does the opposite of what you would. I must say, I laughed in one cut-scene in Saints Row 2 where the character did exactly what I would have, i.e: pulled out a gun and shot the dude in what had been a sword fight up until then.

UT3 serves as a nice example of "how not make UI". I suspect a large part of it was because the system behind that UI was a mess. It was pretty horrible to work on.

I hate poor UIs and ugly UIs. Another thing in UIs is ones that think they are clever when they're not. A common example of this is fancy effects and impressive looking animations that make you wait. When you use a UI, you usually just want it to do its job fast and get out of the sodding way so you can play the game.

Damn, but it can take a lot of effort to actually get a sound to sound right, especially getting that punch! SB will certainly attest to this...

I think the biggest factor causing poor gun sounds is simply a lack of will. The devs just didn't care about the weapons and their sounds. The guy in charge of it doesn't care about audio.

And...
I don't appreciate it when characters say things that are so contrary to what I'm thinking or doing. When the main character has blanks, we (players) fill them in with our imagination and the ambiguous, imagined character we have in our minds is usually more awesome than the poorly written idiot who opens his mouth and shoves in a foot. Giving your player character a voice is a fine tightrope most developers are not capable of. If you won't be inspired by Half-life, please be inspired by CoD, you copy everything else in it...

Don't break you'r own game's rules! (Oh, STALKER: CS, you demonic fiend from hell, why, WHY?!!!)
I don't like the dull, lack of game to play in many RPGs.
Can't say I'm fond of games that feature po-faces in the face of clichés.
Poorly places check-points, especially when they make you replay a cut-scene.

Here's a feature games don't need: GFWL. In all the games I have that use it, it has no use and adds no value to the game. If you (a developer) do find a feature in it that is needed by your game, imagine GFWL is a plastic butter knife in a world with hunting knives.

Alas, I can't remember them all right now, but that could be for the best for now.

I think we need to set up a sticky thread with a list of RS's "Do's" and "Bloody Hell Don't Ever's". We can add to it from time to time and as we hear things from all of you. It can serve as nice list to help us and it can give people an idea of RuneStorm's design ideals and principals!

P.S. Holy shit! </rant>

I plan to try RE5 soon. *nod*

I think STEAM shouldn't have to be the primary system to launch PC games like Fallout New vegas and Serious Sam, because not only does it slow my computer down to a crawl, but it's just damn annoying. It's my opinion, but I think GWFL is better than Steam.

The other problems, totally agree with. *nod*

No, it isn't, but I am heavily inspired by their writing style. I think I even linked to their article with the dos and donts of game design on this forum some time in the past.



The only "fancy" UI I actually like is the one in Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004 version, the 2009 version is much worse). It has animated transitions but they are fast enough that it doesn't bother me, and they look really cool at the same time, another good thing about it is the bright text on dark background theme of it.



It can also be lack of resources; whether money, time or manpower. You guys care about gun sounds but the BW ones are not very impressive if compared to some AAA titles that do this right, but you obviously tried your best with what you had at the time, same can't be said for many developers.



There are far less painful alternatives any ways, like having your teeth pulled out one by one with a crowbar.

UT2004 has no support for Stereo weapon sounds, which makes it much harder to make good sounds for it. Nothing makes me more sad than having to neuter my brand new sounds to one channel. You can't really compare the two.

Though on the topic at hand, I don't think I hate QTE as much as you guys do. I agree sometimes it gets out of hand, but I liked it in Dead Space even though it was everywhere. In that game it added to the desperation and feeling of hopelessness since pretty much any monster could put you in that fight for your life.

Exactly, Runestorm did well with the shoddy audio sub-system as well as the limited resources they had to work with, and you do so as well. I don't directly know what it feels like when one needs to downgrade the work to meet lower standards, but I imagine it is very aggravating.

QTE's were pretty good in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, IMO.

@Bjossi / Kelly: I appreciate the sentiments And yes, as Kelly says, cutting your awesome sounds down to mono and hearing the butchered result is not pleasant Thank god UE3 is stereo..

Anyway, getting you gun sounds just right, is a tough job. You've got to have some skills obviously, then you need to actually care about making your sounds as you imagine, with punch and kick and whatever you imagined it like. I did some work on our side project recently, and after about 20 iterations, I think I got the MG sounding very good. It takes a lot of to make a sounds right.

I think that AAA dev's have absolutely ZERO excuse for their pathetic sounds. Presumably they hire skilled audio designers, and have plenty of budget, so STOP BEING SO LOUSY!! Lack of resources does play a part, and I believe I'd be able to do greater things with a budget increase

It looks like the term QTE means different things to different people. Perhaps this can help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_time_event
In particular, I'm referring to the "during cinematic" kind and ones that prompt you for a button using a "press button" prompt rather than you picking up on the actions of your enemies and responding with the actions of your character.

I'm not advocating that devs should peel off the pointless GFWL integration and stick on a pointless Steam integration. Those apps add nothing of real value to those games, so they shouldn't be used at all on those games. A game can still be distributed via Steam without requiring it if you get it via other sources. If a game does NEED a certain feature of those online platforms, then I think GFLW is a poor choice.

That was an excellent article, like most things there.

Resources certainly should make a difference, but still I believe a little effort and attention to sound design will show through as opposed to someone with lots of cash who just doesn't worry about sound.
We certainly do put a lot of effort into our sounds although, in the BW days, we had the limited UE2 engine, less experience and less decent samples. One thing that is very important is that our sounds sound distinct! Half-life is a great example of this. Their sounds don't just sound high quality, powerful and well balanced, they also sound 'Half-lifey'. For us, the same rule applies; we can't just have a generic scifi gun sound for our railgun, it has to be a distinct BW railgun sound.
Of course, BW was an early practice ground for us and I hope we've improved since then. The other problem was that we couldn't control the whole soundscape of the game. It still had UT's music and all UT's character, environment and UI sounds.

Here's another feature I don't really appreciate in games: Generic 'soundtrack-ey' orchestral music. Yes I know you think you're very clever for hiring that expensive, well renowned professional outfit that does all the cool movies, but at the end of the day, the music is just average. It's a good, up-to-standard hit, but the music ball is still well inside the ballpark.
How about not spending so much money on making your music the same as everyone else's and rather seek out that unknown indie who can create something completely new using just a cheap old computer. I doubt Unreal 1's music was as expensive as a modern orchestra, but it was so much more awesome! I can remember the music of U1 and half-life, but I can't remember the music from most other AAA games.

Totally agree on the point of most music in games, it always sounds the same, and it just seems like a waste of budget... Unreal 1 and Half-Life 1 are great examples of unique and cool music, half-life 2 is even better than 1, you won't hear the same anywhere else...

As for weapon sounds, totally agree, caring what they sound like is far more important than anything else, although I'm sure if we could make weapon fire sounds from actual fire samples, it would make things easier, then we could RS-ify them!...



Indeed, you'll notice that lately I've been posting various threads on game related matters, this is indeed an attempt to get more interest and perhaps get some discussion going..

An RS Do's and Don'ts would be a good idea, especially since we all have different theories..

Well actually I would like to add something about the debate, but some of the worst features have been mentioned already.
Though there is little things that are overdoed that doesn't make the games who have them crap all the time but I'm very tired to see them pretty much featured in almost every game nowadays with the awful tendency to make the game easier and more unidirectional ...

But actually one of the worst feature that isn't mentioned here is poor and lazy level design.
I'm not talking about the level design in the matter of prettiness, but in the matter of architecture that makes the gameplay.
I'm not saying that jumpy levels and things like that should be featured in any game, but jesus, too much games have very flat and too linear levels at the point that it's just following a line.

Ok some people might hate the key cards, the random switches that open doors that are from an other side of a level, but actually those things made the levels more consistent even if at some point the overuse of backtracking can be something that makes the game lazy at some point ...

Indeed, level design often lacks these days Quake 1 had some seriously crazy level design (in a good way). They really used the of true 3d space the engine offered

I am of the keycard-hunting & backtracking fanclub, so I think level design today is generally rather poor. A well-designed level can make both those things fun and not feel like cheap ways to make the level longer. And secrets. A game can never be too serious for secret hunting, just look at RtCW.