And the answer is NoooOOOOoooope!
Like most players there’s game genres I like more or less depending on mood and a fair few I won’t play at all. For me personally, RTS or stuff like train simulators definitely belong to that last category. I detest micro-management in games and sims better be exciting and set in some fantasy world or I won’t touch them with a pitchfork.
Genres to avoid aside, there’s features within my more prized categories that will instantly make me go “Eww” and 99 out of a 100 times that will be the end of our fleeting relationship. They’re the fly in an otherwise tasty soup, it really doesn’t matter if it’s a great looking RPG or adventure game or open world MMO – some features are make or break, au revoir mon ami! So of course here’s a quick list of my top five intolerable game features as of today:
- Isometry; I can’t play isometric games. There’s a ton of great looking and no doubt fun online coop games that OH NOES happen to be isometric. I can’t stand it, it’s about the most unimmersive gameplay experience I can imagine. Also, many RTS are isometric, eww!
- Round-based; I spent over a decade playing round-based JRPGs and am simply over this slow and formulaic type of combat. Give me hack’n slay any day of the week! Next!
- Roguelike/permadeath; Who has time to lose their progress over and over? What is this, a real-life sim? Permadeath games are fun for about 2.5 seconds and then it all feels like the greatest waste of time ever. I don’t think sooooo.
- Jumping Puzzles; Oh man, the pain…the cringe that shoots through my body whenever MMO devs talk about adding more jumping puzzles to their game as if that was somehow a great thing. Jumping puzzles will make me swear off a title quicker than tankinis – if I want to jump around like an obsessed monkey am gonna play PLATFORMERS, thank you!
- Facebook; I don’t have a facebook account and never will. Many mobile games especially require players to log in via facebook or acquire special items exclusively via the devil. Suffice to say, they can burn in hell without me.
I realize this is a beautiful collection of features that should be buried deep, deep in the underbelly of game design never to see the light of day again. Of course, it’s all subjectivebla and we’re bound to disagree and have wonderful arguments about who’s right or wrong! So, why not share some of your personal no-gos in gaming with the rest of the world? I’m sure someone out there is playing a roundbased, isometric RTS with permadeath as we speak, yikes!
Uh.. XCOM? ;D
The thing about all of these is that, to me at least, they’re novelties. To be tried once in a very blue moon for the heck of it, or in the name of broadening my gaming experience. Permadeath? Yeah, tried it in D2 with a friend just to howl defiance at my then-crappy connection. Jumping puzzles? A solid nope, but I still dare every one I come across in GW2 – it helps that over there, jumping puzzles can be as collaborative an activity as ganging up on a world boss. And so on.
The one exception to the above is FB/mobile games, which can rot in the pits as far as I’m concerned. I shun fast food, and that extends to my gaming palate as well.
Don’t get me started on the jumping puzzles in GW2 – omg clock tower! =D
Definitely agree on Jumping Puzzles.
On the Facebook front, if it is genuinely interfering with your ability to play something you want to play, just create a nonsense account and use that to log in. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything that required Facebook that was actually worth playing, though I have used a spam account to get a few in-game rewards for “Liking” the game page, etc.
Am just continuously baffled how widely endorsed Facebook is…..now even for spotify, eugh.
I love roguelikes. 🙁
The better ones with permadeath usually have the concept of account-based progression, catering to the altholic types, unlocking different classes and ways to play the game. The big hurdle is delinking in one’s mind character-based progression versus a player progression where one gets better at the game with increasing knowledge. The characters are just separate continue coin ‘tries’ and can be remade with same name, same background, etc. if desired.
I’m not so good on pure platformer games. I don’t despise them, but I find that I play them the least.
Given a choice of games, I end up going through other genres first and leaving the pure 2d jumpy platformers for last – I think mostly because they stress very tight mastery of timing, it’s just essentially pressing a very low number of buttons with super-perfect timing, requiring heaps of hard work and practice to demonstrate a very specialized mastery. I just don’t have time to prioritize that kind of effort merely to produce a specialized performance in one game, when I could be exploring more interesting gameplay or story concepts and twists elsewhere.
Ditto fighting games and race games along this vein of thought. I might try them for an hour or two, get a flavor of them, but just can’t dedicate myself to them.
Games I really loathe and can’t play after a while? Those that stress primarily open competition, usually in a cutthroat FFA manner, and allow for other players to demonstrate primarily negative/toxic behavior, and allow for negative account or character progression due to other players’ actions.
I can’t get my head around willingly giving up free time (and/or paying for the privilege) to bully and be bullied.
It’s funny, the description you gave for permadeath games (which is very accurate) and platformers are in fact very similar – yet you dislike the latter, hehe! ;D
Oh and good call on beat’em ups and racing games, not my cup of coffee either with the great exception of Street Fighter 2 and Mario Kart! ^^
I think the difference is the roguelikes I play tend to be more turn-based strategic, have RPG elements and a primary focus on combat with the world as an immersive setting, whereas platformers are more arcade-y, primarily focus on jumping (*twitch*) and the world is more an aesthetic backdrop/background.
Once I’m in an arcade realm, I end up favoring first-person-shooterish games more. Preferably without jumping (*twitches again*) Case in point, I’ve never quite gotten around to Mirror’s Edge either, FPS viewpoint though it may be. Zero combat, much jumping. *gulp*
Turn Based Combat makes me nuts. Just let me fight back, now.
Racing games: Love to watch them played, can’t keep any car off of the wall, ever.
Flying games: Cant control the aircraft and shoot. (Except in Star Trek Online where flight was the best part of the game.)
Fighting Games: Worst games ever. Pummel pummel pummel till your fingers drop off.
First Person Shooters…no. It isn’t just the person vs person thing. My son plays some game where he keeps having to get these stupid empty boxes while dodging bullets. When you die all of a sudden it looks like you’re covered in grass. He gets so mad when I ask what that grassy stuff is, and why he doesn’t go nuts getting box after box after box. It seems so boring.
I kinda do like certain FPS but especially for the online multiplayer ones, the community often puts me off entirely. So hostile 🙁
Someone could me make very happy with a Turnbased, Isometric Game with perma-death!
My no,no’s are MMORPG’s 😀
I’m shocked =P
I think you want Banner Saga for that. ;p
(I got my best fighter killed off about three fights in, and not sure if I ever want to continue, or if I should just restart and play better.)
Yeah, I pretty much love everything on your list.
Rogue. Roguelike. Roguelike-like. Rogue-lite. Love them all. Permadeath adds a level of challenge not seen in most games. Diablo III with permadeath is the only way to play.
Oh yeah, that’s isometric. Most Action-RPGs are. Love those too. RTS? Yep. Isometric and fun. MOBAs? Well most people know I love me some League of Legends.
Jumping puzzles not so much, but I do enjoy the occasional platformer, particularly if it has some roguelike (Rogue Legacy) or MOBA (Awesomenauts) elements.
Nothing wrong with classic JRPG combat, but I do like that most games still making use of this tend to have other facets that make it feel less boring and time consuming.
I’m with you on the Facebook games though. Yuck.