Your Favorite Games Have Flaws. What Are They?

Obviously, your favorite game is your favorite for a reason. But since no game is perfect (human error and all that), even your all-time favorite has one or more flaws that take you out of your time and break your immersion. I wanna know what they are. I'm not looking to bash certain games, as everyone has their own tastes. Hell, I'll start with my own favorite game.

The Last of Us, to me, is a finely crafted game that combines story and gameplay in a way that just feels amazing. The combat, characters, interactions, everything to me is just a marvel. The only issue? Your AI companion is almost invisible to enemies. If not for the fact that your AI partner sometimes gets caught in a grapple that you must save them from, the game would've become broken as your partner assists you and never gets into trouble. Granted, if they were always to be seen by the enemy, the game would've been infuriating to play and become yet another awful escort mission. So yeah, there's the only blemish in an otherwise (IMO) flawless game.

So what about the rest of you? What about your favorite game annoys you?

My favourite game is Half-Life 2... And the biggest flaw to me is the driving in the game. You do a fair amount of driving, and I think that is one aspect that could've been a lot better.

My favorite game is Mass Effect 1. It's problems are probably well known and I have played that game so many times that I've naturally gotten over them. So, I'm okay with them.

My favorite game series is Legacy of Kain; the gameplay is somewhat uninspired and derivative, often copying popular contemporaries like Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry, but the strength of the storyline and voice acting alone carries this franchise for me on multiple playthroughs

Red Dead Redemption and it's tank-like character movement. Rockstar have always been bad with character controls. Also, how Bounty missions tend to bug out on occasion.

The Last Of Us has a couple little design quirks that lead to minor frustration.

FarCry 3 and it's inconsistent characters (except for all 3 of the villains, they are awesome) and generic story.

Batman Arkham City: thought the R'as Al Ghul segment and fight was generic and underwhelming as hell. My least favorite part of the game.

Let's see, my other favorite games include the following:

Xenogears - the magic spells mostly suck in this game. Also, disc two is a giant text scroll with boss fights in between, and it almost killed the pacing of the game.

Shadow of the Colossus - the horse controls and the camera were more than a little irritating.

Metroid Prime - The first-person platforming can be a little too precise, resulting in some missed jumps.

Mega Man X - once you know a boss's weakness, they become jokes instead of challenges.

Portal 2 is actually perfect. The only thing wrong with it is its too short

The only problem I had with my No.1, Snake Eater, was the camera. Thankfully it was rectified in Subsistence.

Lol... yeah I can't think of many flaws.

@hrt_rulz01: Really? I thought Portal 2 was just a retconn of the first game.

Kotor. Amazing game but it was very, very buggy (back at it's initial release anyway).

I think Portal 2 is an improvement on Portal In every way... I can't think one thing that Portal does better.

@hrt_rulz01: I personally thought Portal was amazingly self-contained and paced, with some of the best puzzle mechanics I've ever seen and a pretty dark yet hilarious villain and story. Portal 2 was good, don't get me wrong, but I thought it ran a bit too long and had a bunch of aspects that felt a bit gimmicky to me, like the addition of gels.

Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy X don't really have any problems. Perhaps some tedious missions like the Chocobo Race or the Lightning Dodge for FFX or some side missions in ME 2, but it's very minor

I can see your point, but I think they needed to build upon Portal's puzzle mechanics for the sequel, like using gel etc. Did you prefer Portal's story over P2? I thought P2's story was brilliant, and the writing was perfect. And Wheatley... one of the best characters ever created.

Pacing - No wasted time on things like 'finding the white space' in Portal 2 that were abundant in the middle sections of the game

Narrative - The original Portal didnt spell things out for you, which for me made more a more powerful experience; though portal 2 did have its fair share of rather deliberate subtleties.

My favorite game is Majora's Mask and I'd say that it's only real flaw is the save system. Not a deal breaker at all but I could see how some people would be turned off by it.

Break my "immersion" ?.... What if I don't play games for immersion? also Immersion is highly subjective so is it a flaw in the game or in you ?

@Lulu_Lulu: If you don't play games for immersion, then you must only play them for the challenge. In that case, what makes the challenge either unfair or cheap?

And immersion might be subjective, but I guarantee most gamers who get lost for hours on end playing video games are immersed in some way or another.

@mastermetal777

What about playing just for fun ?

Anyway its not important..... Theres just way to many things wrong with my favourite games..... I guess the big one would have to be the way Capcom has been Splitting the Screen lately..... In President Evil 6 and Lost Planet 2 it was absolutely dreadfull.....

@Lulu_Lulu: You wanna play for fun, that's fine. But allow other people to enjoy their games because the game means something to them as well. Playing games isn't just about fun anymore.

@mastermetal777

Why should I ?

They're doing it wrong and that breaks my heart ! :(

@Lulu_Lulu: Doing what wrong? Playing video games wrong? Or making them wrong? Because I bet a lot of people could tell you the opposite. Or they might agree with you. Not everyone has to be in agreement about what a game should be. That's why we have different games that strive to achieve different goals for the player.

@mastermetal777

Hey alot of people can do whatever they want, I won't change my position just because literally everyone disagrees with me... But I will change my position if one person disagrees with me if they're actually are right... :p

Actually if people can't come to an agreement about what something is then things are going to get redundant pretty quickly..... People will just calling anything part of gaming even if that thing already exists and is better in another medium.... This is the side effect of people just generalizing things.

@Lulu_Lulu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLKVg-2d54c

This sums up exactly how I feel about this whole thing

@mastermetal777

Can't see it...... Got something I can read instead ?

Or would you like to express your feelings in your own words ?

Either way my bandwith just doesn't support streaming.

Hmm, don't actually have a favorite game

But all games have flaws or things that could have been better a different way.

@Lulu_Lulu: Essentially, games shouldn't only be about having fun anymore. Much like film and literature have explored ways of being more engaging to their audiences, video games are trying to do the same thing - at least, that's what some developers are doing. But there's a fear from within the gaming community that thinks exploring video games on a deeper level somehow sucks the fun out of them. That's just not the case. We, as humans, don't necessarily want to be entertained by "fun", but rather to be "engaged." Do we play horror games to have fun? No, we play because we want to overcome fear in the midst of horrifying elements. Do we read horror novels or watch horror films to have fun with them? Of course not. And what if all the films that ever came out were Michael Bay style films or Dan Brown novels? Wouldn't that suck? They're engaging, sure, but there's nothing deep being explored in them. Games should try to do the same because mere "entertainment" is no longer enough.

Here's an article for your reading pleasure.

http://www.destructoid.com/fun-isn-t-enough-why-video-games-have-to-move-beyond-simple-escapism-30905.phtml

@mastermetal777

Well obviously ! I would never disagree with that, after all I'm still looking for a game that does that.... A real game not Gone Home, Journey or Heavy Rain.

You wana know whats funny.... I just found out a man whom I have alot of respect for.... Plays games for immersion..... It broke my heart. :(

Immersion is the new black Lulu and you know it :D and how can something like that break your heart, you should rejoice over knowing such a wise man.

Far Cry 3:

The outpost doors could have been more varied instead of the same red color.

There could have been different storekeepers instead of the same old hag. At least the old hag in the Boom Town store packed a shotgun.

Too many clones overall.

FSX:

Barely any multicore CPU support.

Dated graphics. To be fair, it released in 2006.

@Jacanuk

I'm conflicted.... This is the same man that inspired my hate for RPGs and Cutscenes. I would've thought he'be above immersion too....

BTW I'm talking about one of Cracked's senior Editors, David Wong, who also just said he won't be writing about Video Games anymore :(

Final Fantasy X, its a bit too easy.

Mass Effect, The combat isn't really that great.

Have you tried defeating all the damn dark Aeons and Penance?

Not yet, I want to max my peeps. But I don't count that because they aren't part of the actual narrative.

@Jeager_Titan

I don't think that was a "Pacing" Problem in Portal 2, the pacing issues were just a sympton of the real problem, in old apeture the puzzles weren't so clever anymore..... You would get stuck not because you couldn't figure out the solution but because the solution essentially became "find the one portalable surface" which wasn't very clever.

My favorite game is Super Metroid. And the game design is so good that even the "flaws" have been turned into further strengths by the speedrunning and sequence breaking communitys.

True, but they are a part of the game though

@Lulu_Lulu: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/120720/Analysis_The_Psychology_of_Immersion_in_Video_Games.php

Here's why immersion is a natural part of experiencing something.

@mastermetal777

Actually the Artical doesn't say why its natural..... Infact it says immersion is not necessary and in some cases is actually bad so......

Its still extremely subjective and designers are better off not focusing on it. Not just in Video Games but in all media, books and everything.

@Lulu_Lulu: But to enjoy something in the first place is to be subjective. If you enjoy something, it's automatically a subjective feeling. You might not enjoy this one game. That's subjective, no matter how much objectivity you may attempt to put into your opinion. I believe that no form of media can be truly looked at objectively. People like what they like, and that's okay. You may agree with them or question their taste, but that's all it is: their taste. It's up to you whether or not to put yourself in a game in order to enjoy it. And if developers want to include an emotional plug in their game, that's their choice. You can't just force people to abandon subjectivity, because how can you abandon emotions?

@mastermetal777

I'm not asking anyone to abandon subjectivity.... I can see how that can be confusing because I think they should be abandon Immersion because its highly subjective. But I only say that because people's immersion gets broken by the stupidest things that developers can't do anything about.

Also even though everything is subjective doesn't mean we should throw our arms up in the air and give up on the things we know just shouldn't be happening. Its this pecreived objectivity that creates better games.

@Lulu_Lulu: Well, some people are sensitive to such things. Video games aren't perfect and never will be, like everything that has and will be created by humans. I'm just saying that with some games, the issues become nothing more than a minor issue that players quickly overcome. That's what immersion is to me: when the problems don't matter and the player can play the game, feel like their in the world, and just play and experience it to their hearts content.

@mastermetal777

Thats what leads to deliberate compensating for things out of laziness.

@Lulu_Lulu: yeah, maybe for some developers, but not all. Don't lump all video game developers into the same piles just because of a few bad seeds like Activision and EA

@mastermetal777

What !

Activision and EA are great companies... No seriously... The hat is not justified.

I was actually thinking more along the the lines of Square Enix and Bethesda.

Burnout 3 is my favorite game and it doesn't have any flaws. It's a perfect game. :D