Common game design errors...

[cinabar]

Games that don't let you change options while in game annoy me. Why should I have to quit the game to change volume levels or to customise controls?

Yep, or having to come out of a game that you've waited to load - so that you can change your joystick set up.... Which reminds me... games that don't let you change you joystick set up!

Also... Games that don't bother to test their co-op mode, and leave loads of bugs in... like Medal of Honour: Rising Sun! And lets not forget Return to Castle Wolfenstein! I actually asked them why RTCW wouldn't let you save or unlock levels in the co-op mode - and got told it was technically too difficult to add!!!! Yeah right... letting users unlock levels as they play in co-op - technically difficult.... they just forgot!

[off topic] Which reminds me... why don't magazines review co-op modes properly and tell you about these things?? I know.... that would need two reviewers, which is far too much effort [/off topic]

[Alex W.]

Rubbish. It can be done. Skipping would be no different to loading a saved game (you'd get to see some movie clip showing you what "happend" narrative wise). Any relevant items you'd automatically get as you start the level.

Would it be the exact same gaming experience as playing through the level? Of course not. But if you think its a shit level, you're not going to care.

How would you know it's a shit level if you've not played it yet? It could start off bad and then get better, and so on. Hence, unlocking as things are cleared. And besides, if it was a good game, the level (hopefully) wouldn't seem bad to you.

Also, using Metroid as an example again, being dumped in a later level with five new abilities you've never used before might be a bit tricky- Metroid games wisely add sections requiring frequent use of a new ability as soon as you get it, so you're practiced.

Lastly, if a game has any kind of flexibility or non-linearity in the way it works (for example, Deus Ex or System Shock) you'd have a world of confusion when it came to deciding what abilities you'd start the next section with. Five presets? Ten? Maybe I would've spent those upgrades on X ability instead of Y...

Still, it's a good idea for some games (Mario, for example) but it's far from a universally applicable principle.

[Spectre]

+ I like the idea that you can save a game wherever you are. Like in RT Castle Wolfenstein. You can go off and have your tea (or whatever) at any time, not having to worry if you can reach a save point or finish a level. The idea of playing the whole game in single player to unlock all the multiplayer levels was naff. Same as not being able to save in co-op!

+ I agree with some posters who have previously mentioned on this thread. Ladders can be a pain.

+ I hate getting stuck on corners, like walls and furniture... in real life you'd be more likely to slip around than keep walking straight into something!

+ I like to set up my own controls or have lots of options I may be able to get used to.

[Kenshi]

How would you know it's a shit level if you've not played it yet? It could start off bad and then get better, and so on. Hence, unlocking as things are cleared. And besides, if it was a good game, the level (hopefully) wouldn't seem bad to you.

Yes a level could improve. Yes a level can have a certain pace. But more importantly, I might not have the time nor the inclination to give it a chance.

Using abilities you had automatically discovered due to skipping past a boring level could be tricky, sure. You could design around the problem by having a kind of open training level/mode, or you could just take the approach that it is just a consequence of using the level select feature. Either is fine (the former is obviously more preferable though.

I'm not saying that having a level skip feature would not affect the kind of gaming experience you might have if you used it. Of course it would. I'm just saying that as a someone who's paying for entertainment, I should get the choice to play the game in the manner that suits me.

Lastly, if a game has any kind of flexibility or non-linearity in the way it works (for example, Deus Ex or System Shock) you'd have a world of confusion when it came to deciding what abilities you'd start the next section with. Five presets? Ten? Maybe I would've spent those upgrades on X ability instead of Y...

Again this is something you can design around. You just give the player the points/choice of abilities and let them decide before starting the new level.

With a bit of thought there is no reason why the level skip feature couldn't be used in any game.

[DJ Sack]

My One pet hate is 'You finished 4th, you needed to finish 3rd, you are disqualifed, but the people who lost in every race before get to race in every single time!'

[Yobo Ahoy]

When a game's music doesn't stop (or at least get quieter) when you pause it. Because most of the time when I pause a game, it's to answer the 'phone or something.

Admittedly most games realise this, but there's still the odd one. Gits.

[Uxorious]

Unlocking multiplayer modes... WHY???!!!!

That gets my vote too.

[Jumble Jumble]

Personally I think all games should have a built in menu giving you LOADS of cheats, definitely invulnerability and no time limit among those. Of course the menu itself could be activated with a code but it should be easy.

My reason for this is because my handicapped brother enjoys games a lot, but he uses them as sandboxes, with no idea of the concept of objectives etc. Crazy taxi is a good example - he loves it, but the longest game he can have is 10 minutes before he has to come and get me to start it up again. There must be other kids in this situation too, why not let them enjoy the games just as much as we do?

[Project 2501]

It really annoys me when games throw you back to the title screen after you die without giving you any other option to retry or load your game, Resident Evil, Deus Ex: Invisible War and Eternal Darkness are all guilty of this, likewise, does anyone else believe that lives are something of a redundant concept in games now? Since in most cases they are simply used to dictate how many mistakes you can make before the aformentioned scenario happens.

[reto]

...or games which have FMVs for the publisher/developer logos and each click only skips past each logo, not the entire sodding thing. Gotham 2 had a fantastic no-bullshit loader which skipped past everything. Hooray!

Rainbow Six is bad for this even the intro movie starts automatically before the menu screen. Grrr

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I don't like being thrown back to the hub after dying in the Mario games, especially SM64 and Sunshine. You fail, you hear the 'you-failed'-tune, you get back to the hub and have to jump back in, get the jump-in animation, get the title, etc. It just takes too much time. I'd rather start back in the same level, with an option to quit to the hub if I want to try something else.

I also dislike non-autosaving sportsgames where you loose your progress if you turn the machine off. And I dislike menuscreens which want confirmation for about everything you want to do, and the option you're least likely to select is the default one. "Are you sure you want to save? Yes / No"

-Edit- And the fact that all the terrorists in Splinter Cell PT speak English like they were raised on George W. Bush's ranch. Why don't they speak Arab or Indonesian? The only things they say are 'I thought I heard something' and 'Who's there!?'. I guess even without subtitling we might know, and it would be more atmospheric and realistic.

[frumious]

Cameras in games that let you move them about as you want but as soon as you let go they immediately lock back to the default view angle/distance.

I got a bit annoyed at Jak and Daxter recently, which has a nice convenient camera rotating function, very useful for precision jumping. Except the camera refuses (OK, it sometimes will do, albeit very slowly and with strange thumbstick wrestling) to move all the way to one side of you if there's something in the way, for example if you're in a (not necessarily very narrow) corridor. All it would need is to move in slightly, or do a bit of transparent wall action.

[ryodi]

Sports games where you lose control of you players. PES 3 has some very annoying examples of this:

- When a player loses posession, they just stop. For no reason. Despite the cursor saying you control them, the game refuses to give you control back for at least five seconds. Why? ISS 98 never did this. What possible point is there for this?

- It does the on long ball. Hit is and it bounces beside a player and you cannot take control of it until it lands when you should be able to force the player to do something.

Sports games. I want control at all time, not when you feel like it.