Criticisms of All Time Favourites

[ProHypster]

In sentence 1 you are in 1998, while in sentence 2 you are suddenly in 2011. You have difficulties thinking relatively I suppose.

Are you joking?

Why do you have a grudge against me?

Have I done anything to piss you off?

 

MS Paint was there,

Windows 98 was there.

 

All you need for this easy as hell job.

[Bjossi]

I can easilly change a face texture in 30 seconds on MS paint in Win 3.1. I have the discs lying around here somewhere...

 

If you want I can record me booting up my old 33MHz system, and doing it in DOS if I have to.

 

I'm sure you could, but this has nothing to do with my original criticism of SmartGuy's criticism.

 

I could ask more specific questions; how much more variety of scientists and guards do you feel is reasonable without the need to raise the game's requirements? And in the same vein; what level of realism do you feel is reasonable to expect when it comes to stuff breaking and the gun combat? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Valve weren't trying to squeeze through a tight deadline, so I assume that what became Half-Life is a result of the limitations and resources they had to work with and were targeting.

[ProHypster]

Making more faces wouldn't change any requirements, it would add maybe 2-10 mb of space.

Realistic breaking means just making the proportions of the blocks at least right. Also could have easily been made with the requirements.

 

They released it because they worked on Hl for way too long and I don't blame them. They practically re-did the game when they released it, remember the beta videos?

 

Of course I would've liked a better breaking system and more variations plus realistic firing but at that time it was a huge step to do what Valve did anyway and none of the competitors had more realistic firing so they didn't need to do it, they could've but they didn't bother as customers will still buy the game as they have no choice. It's a marketing strategy, do what is the minimal requirements for the most reward.

 

Now, that doesn't mean Valve are evil, they are the same as 90% of commercial businesses, except they have some more talent.

[Arby]

To be fair, insistence on extreme perfectionism has delayed some games for more than a decade (I'm looking at you Duke) and killed many more. Valve put out what they felt was a finished product of quality justifiying the years of effort and the price for the consumer. A few extra faces wouldn't have added much. Having realistic NPCs at all was a milestone for the time.

[Psychotic Ninja]

Batman Arkham Asylum:

 

• Every, and I do mean EVERY boss fight follows the exact same formula: use a specific gadget to bring them down (usually the batarang) and when they're down, beat the shit out of them and the minions.

• Some of the upgrades are useless.

• Final boss fight really easy

• Very linear

• If you remove the impressive voice acting, story/plot, it's just your basic beat-um-up

• Detective mode is lame

[Eedo Baba]

Batman Arkham Asylum:

 

• Every, and I do mean EVERY boss fight follows the exact same formula: use a specific gadget to bring them down (usually the batarang) and when they're down, beat the shit out of them and the minions.

• Some of the upgrades are useless.

• Final boss fight really easy

• Very linear

• If you remove the impressive voice acting, story/plot, it's just your basic beat-um-up

• Detective mode is lame

 

Some of these I definitely disagree with. The gameplay isn't just "basic beat-um-up". There are parts like that of course, but there are also the stealth sections where you have to take out a room full of armed guards one at a time. There are also the occasional variations of gameplay, like the scarecrow hallucinations, and tracking a person using detective mode. The basic combat makes up only a fraction of the gameplay.

[ISGC]

Morrowind:

- Instructions and directions are often very vague and sometimes wrong

- Uninviting color scheme (brownest game since brown went to brown town)

- pretty awful and easily exploitable AI

- several broken/useless features

- limited fast travel (I, personally, enjoy this aspect, but it is a complaint for many)

 

these admitted, it's still my favorite game of all time

[Koockaburra101]

Half-Life 1:

-They should've made at least one of the generic scientist models female, if only for some variety

-They should've tried to be more accommodating towards deaf gamers, like they were in Half-Life 2

 

StarCraft 1:

-You should've been able to control more than 12 units at a time. Limiting the number of selectable units just makes it more annoying.

 

Diablo 2:

-They should've allowed you to save/load whenever you wanted to in single player, rather than only doing it when you exit the game.

-It would have been nice to be able to at least select your gender, rather than arbitrarily dividing it among classes.

[Eedo Baba]

Half Life 2

- SMG is TOO LOUD.

- Too many explosive barrels to be even close to realistic.

- Hitting an explosive barrel with a crowbar will make it explode. WHAA?! Is it full of nitroglycerin?!

- That chopper that holds like a million bombs, makes no sense at all.

- Standing in toxic waste up to your knees will hurt you. I thought he was wearing a super advanced hazmat suit!

- Infinite pherapods. Sorry, but it makes no sense.

- Very linear in design, though I don't mind, sense this is what Valve's great at.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Portal

- Too short. The game can be completed in less than 3 hours.

- Chell, like Freeman, has zero personality and feels like a bland shell (pardon the pun) for the player. While this philosophy closely mimicks that of id Software, I think people want strong characters and I don't feel Chell is any character at all. This also goes for Portal 2. Though not really a good criticism since it's a matter of taste and it doesn't really affect the game.

 

Fallout 3

- Lack of adult content. What classified the earlier Fallouts, especially 2, was just the amount of sexual and violent content in the game. It felt free and open because of it. In Fallout 2 you could even as a female char become a porn star. How cool is that? Fallout 3 felt very numb and PG-13 compared to earlier titles. Children weren't even killable.

- No burst fire on the combat shotgun. The original combat shotgun from Fallout 2 had an automatic burst fire mode which made the combat shotgun my favourite weapon in that game. While it consumed ammo heavily, it was just such a cool way of slaughtering opponents. Really miss that in Fallout 3.

- The violent Bloody Mess perk is not available from the start like in earlier games. Here it's unlocked much later. I feel this ruins the early part of the game and it should've been possible to make it a menu option or make it available from the beginning. A lot of other perks faced the same fate.

- The facial animation looks terrible.

- The constant green smoke didn't bother me so much to begin with but now playing with the patch that removed it, I can clearly see it makes the game look terrible.

- The game engine is terribly glitchy and will crash at random or glitches happen in-game such as objects flying all over the place in glitch-mode or getting stuck in the terrain.

- The semi-turnbased VAC is a joke and is purely for show. I hardly use it.

[Eedo Baba]

Fallout 3 felt very numb and PG-13 compared to earlier titles. Children weren't even killable.

 

I think the fact that you consider this a problem might say something about you.

[Bjossi]

Making all NPCs killable creates the possibility to leave a stronger emotional impact on the player. I'd never kill kids in-game intentionally, but if it happened by accident I'd feel pretty bad even if I reloaded.

[alphabetagamma]

Counter Strike: Source

-Extremely repetitive game play/maps

-No re-spawn can make waiting VERY boring

-Some gamers are way too good at it ruining the fun for others (IOW I suck )

-Unrealistic game concept e.g. Same number of CTs as Ts instead of more CTs but with T advantages

-SNIPERS!

 

Minesweeper

-Poor graphics

-Guessing sometimes mandatory

-Lack of multi-player

[ProHypster]

Counter Strike: Source

-Extremely repetitive game play/maps

-No re-spawn can make waiting VERY boring

-Some gamers are way too good at it ruining the fun for others (IOW I suck )

-Unrealistic game concept e.g. Same number of CTs as Ts instead of more CTs but with T advantages

-SNIPERS!

 

 

Basically, I played Cs for 10 years... and well, I can tell you that Extremely repetitive game play and snipers are just beginners negatives.

 

When you're a pro cs offers such a vast amount of strategy.. and sometimes you get crazy moments in that game that you remember for a loooong time..

[Bjossi]

Minesweeper

- When you win, the sunglasses on the smiley lack realistic reflection effects

 

Solitaire

- The AI is pretty much non-existent

- Bad sound effects

- No end boss

- No use of DX10 or 11

- Seriously repetitive level design

[ProHypster]

Hearts

- Everything is 2D.

 

- The green monotone background gets annoying

 

- No Lobby Music.

 

- Computers HackZ!!!

 

- Removed after Windows XP

[alphabetagamma]

You have to burn the rope

-To few weapons

-Not long enough

-To few enemies

-Poor storyline development

[Alyxx Thorne]

Fallout 3 felt very numb and PG-13 compared to earlier titles. Children weren't even killable.

 

I think the fact that you consider this a problem might say something about you.

I consider it a problem because in earlier titles, you could kill children, but it earned you the worst karma ever and EVERYONE in the game ended up hating you. Being a child killer was the worst thing you could be in that game.

Instead of limiting the player's actions and making the game realistic, I think they should've done like the earlier games and just punished the player for that. And like Bjossi stated, you would be left with remorse if you killed a kid by accident.

[Descriptor]

Fallout 3 felt very numb and PG-13 compared to earlier titles. Children weren't even killable.

 

I think the fact that you consider this a problem might say something about you.

I consider it a problem because in earlier titles, you could kill children, but it earned you the worst karma ever and EVERYONE in the game ended up hating you. Being a child killer was the worst thing you could be in that game.

Instead of limiting the player's actions and making the game realistic, I think they should've done like the earlier games and just punished the player for that. And like Bjossi stated, you would be left with remorse if you killed a kid by accident.

Think of it this way.

If they HAD left all that stuff in, we would be having 24 news stories on people freaking out on this super ultraviolent game, and it would instantly get an A/o rating.

 

The first two Fallouts could get away with it because they weren't scary first person shooters, so the media didn't care as much...

[Alyxx Thorne]

I still would've prefered it that way. It's not Fallout for me, only seems like a bleak modern remake. Doesn't feel as rough and realistic, even if the graphics might be more realistic.