1) Let me set the scene. You are a talented mystical soldier, imbued with power from the gods, and you are sent to murder thousands of villainous icky creatures. However, the gods forgot one thing: a jump button to avoid the Tsunami of attacks being thrown at you. Jumping is something so fundamental, that prehistoric man was doing it before he discovered fire. Still, some developers fail to see the benefit of jumping. What is even more mind boggling is that there is more than one game that left out this all important skill. Several titles from Popeye to SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis have been released without a jump button. Even some good games won't allow our hero the most minute hop. (Brutal Legend, Mass Effect) The worst offender I have seen is Heavenly Sword.
Even for a Female carbon copy of God of War, this game had potential. While playing a gamer is introduced to the world with beautiful cut scenes and fluid fighting mechanics. However, after the first battle one realizes that with all our heroines skill and butt kicking capability, she forgot to learn to jump. I love cutting down hordes of evil monsters. But when they circle me, a nice high jump, or dare I even think, double jump to escape their nefarious clutches would be nice.
2) Nothing is more infuriating than finding that treasure you crossed heaven and earth to find, then turning around only to be impaled by a minotaur on steroids. Oh well, you can just pick up from your last save point, wait, you can’t, this game doesn’t have a save point. The lack of save/check points in video games, used to be a problem with technology. There was no way to save your progress. Older consoles would include codes, which was fine for the time. But when the Super Nintendo came out you could save your progress in game. Today the average gaming console is basically a computer, so this problem has gone extinct. But for those of us who are old enough to remember the frustration of the 16bit and under consoles, this is well placed at number two. One game in particular was pretty frustrating for me. Jurrasic Park for the Super Nintendo was a really cool game.
It had loads of maps to explore, and switched to a pretty cool first person shooter for parts of the game. It was so real at the time I couldn't even play the raptor nests levels at night. But no matter how hard I tried, I never finished all the missions, before I had to turn off the console. With no code and no option to save, it was impossible to beat this game. One summer, while bored, I sat down with a strategy guide and played it straight through. It took me eighteen hours to beat it, after twenty two years of frustration.
3) Normally, you wouldn’t Konsider a franchise like Mortal Kombat unsuccessful. But I still maintain that having a block button, is what Kept this game in the shadows of street fighter.
Don’t get me wrong Mortal Kombat was fun. I like nothing more than to beat a guy down, and then pull his soul out through his nose. However, beating someone down is a lot harder when you have to press a button to block. Those old fighting games didn’t have the combos, and counters like the Marvel vs. Capcoms of today. They were much more strategic: trying to lure out your oppenent to just within reach of your deadly roundhouse kick. When mere millimeters on screen could mean the difference between a Koncussion and a love tap, having to press a button to block was an added distraction you didn’t need. It is also the reason why you could time the sweep to keep your opponent in a never ending circle of pain. (They could also do it to you.) The block button has, however, found a new use. In two dimensional fighting games where you could only move toward and away from your opponent it was a nuisance, but a lot of todays games operate in a three dimensional environment. These types of games allow attacks to come from anywhere. This makes a block button invaluable. As useful as it is now, I still maintain that a block button is the reason why Mortal Kombat did not do as well as Street fighter.
4) I have never been one to shy away from challenging games, but I had to put many a game down during the second or third level. Games that have a really hard early levels always baffled me. It is natural to think that a game gets progressively harder as you go through the levels. But have you ever gotten to the second level to face a crazy hard maze or impossible boss. You wonder what could possibly come after this? You spend months and weeks trying to get past it. Finally, after using a code, strategy guide or Game Genie (remember those) you get past it and breeze through the rest of the game. I plead to programmers to stop making the early stages of games really hard. A good example is Battle Toads. I have yet to meet someone in person who has beat the third stage. What is worse is the fighting stages are really fun. I like smaking pigs with anvils and boots, but I can’t reach them cause I can’t get past those stupid speeder bikes. Another game is Earthworm Jim.
It was a weird, funky, fun game and a mediocre cartoon. On about the fourth level there is a bubble stage which is really hard to pass. While trying to navigate a narrow passage you run out of air or break your ship. I thought maybe this game was just really hard, so I put in the code, and the other stages are not that bad. It is just another fun game ruined by a difficult early level.
5) This video game faux paux has not really killed any specific titles, but is annoying none the less. Point totals that don’t mean anything. Has anyone ever checked their score on street fighter.
The point totals add up into the hundreds of thousands, and then you just start all over again. You don’t compare scores with your friends, if you want to prove your meddle, you pick up a controller and go head to head. Why have point totals? Is it our inherent need to know that how worthy our punches are? Do we need a numerical value attached to our karate performance. Even worse are Adventure games with a point count. If I just saved the world from complete oblivion, from a dark sorcerer riding a dragon mecha the size of Texas, does it really matter how many points I scored. Remember Castlevania for the NES, what purpose do these points serve?
Granted, some games require points for bragging rights. How would we know who can shred a guitar the best in Guitar Hero if we can’t compare scores.
I am sure there are more examples, no duck button, not being able to skip cut scenes or long intro scenes, etc. I would love to hear from anyone about more, but these are the top five. And for any programmers, try not to make these mistakes when you are writing the script for your next digital adventure.
