Big flaws in otherwise great games?

Sometimes when I am just starting to get into a game, I find out it has one or two bad aspects that really stand out as the game in general is great. Here are such games:

Just Cause 1 & 2 - both of these games are great and very intense, but the shooting really changed the whole experience for the worse.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Morrowind is my favorite game of all time, so how could the sequel disappoint? The quests are brilliant, so are the characters and story and towns, but the leveling system really ruined for me. Your level really didn't matter as your enemies level up with you. Oblivion is not an rpg - it's more of an action game (at least comparing it to Morrowind)

Just Cause 2 - terrible story, quests, voice acting

L4D 2 - badly designed new special infected, awkward new visual direction, forgettable maps, annoying new stereotypes

Dungeon Defenders - not enough defense variety (will change with the new class, a little at least)

Witcher 1 - slow and random first act

Space Marine - terrible p2p matchmaking system

Dragon Age Origins - mediocre and forgettable second half of the game (if somebody didn't play it in the same order, the Dwarf city and the castle)

Dragon Age 2 - reused "few" locations for its tenths of hours of gameplay

Dead Island - a rough product overall, animations, models, driving, shooting and too much bloom

Fable 3 - blur filter that's only suitable for TVs, on PC it just looks like ghosting

Mafia 2 - detailed and pretty big world, nothing in it

Dungeon Siege 3 - CO-OP camera and most of the voices

Battlefield 3- The godawful campaign that just aped Call of Duty every step of the way and took anything that was unique or fun in the Bad Company games away.

Crysis- The brain dead AI that do everything from surviving multiple headshots without moving, to throwing a grenade right next to their own explosive barrels.

Condemned- The simplistic melee design (first game)

Call of Duty series post WaW- Lack of PC support and incredibly unbalanced multiplayer and way too linear campaign

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines - Crappy combat, last fourth of the game or so is awful.

Alpha Protocol - Ending was rushed, Bad/Unbalanced gameplay (I killed the last boss in a couple of seconds)

Stealth and shooting in Metro 2033. Such a terrifically atmospheric game but the stealth was broken and gunplay wasn't tight

World of Warcraft (Post Cataclysm)- Serious stat inflation, most of the community is made of pre-pubescent fools, flying mounts ruin the explroing element.

Few more:

RAGE- Vehicles work alright, but aren't worked into the story well and remove me from the immersion, plus the open world is the blandest, least alive open world I've seen in recent memory.

Red Dead Redemption- Incredibly slow start, for an epic western I think it could have started with a nice bang to keep me less bored until I reached Mexico.

Grand Theft Auto IV- Not the biggest flaw, but I wish the modding was a little easier to do, for such an awesome and open game modding should be more accepted.

Fallout: New Vegas- Feels too much like "more Fallout 3" instead of branching out, and is INSANELY buggy to the point of hair pulling frustration, especially on console versions where Obsidian didn't even bother testing apparently.

Far Cry 2- Repetition and traveling is WAY too prevalant, they really should have mixed up the enemies and missions more.

Grand Theft Auto IV- Not the biggest flaw, but I wish the modding was a little easier to do, for such an awesome and open game modding should be more accepted.SPYDER0416

[QUOTE="SPYDER0416"]Grand Theft Auto IV- Not the biggest flaw, but I wish the modding was a little easier to do, for such an awesome and open game modding should be more accepted.DanielDust

Why do you keep saying tenths? a tenth is 1/10, tens of thousands is 10,000

there is an extremely big difference between 1/10 and 10,000

[QUOTE="DanielDust"][QUOTE="SPYDER0416"]Grand Theft Auto IV- Not the biggest flaw, but I wish the modding was a little easier to do, for such an awesome and open game modding should be more accepted.NailedGR

Why do you keep saying tenths? a tenth is 1/10, tens of thousands is 10,000

there is an extremely big difference between 1/10 and 10,000

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodline: I thought I was the only one who played this game lol. For its time on a standard gaming pc the load times were a game breaker for me. Every 3mins was a load screen that seemed to take forever. (although I did play through it all and am re-thinking doing so again on a 2012 pc)

big rigs was great. it was just that it was big rigs, that was the big flaw.

[QUOTE="Same_Jeans_On"]Call of Duty- Became a yearly iteration game. Dungeon Defenders- Mana system which doesn't encourage teamwork in a team-based game. Batman AC/AA - Overly repetitive combat.TheDude184

[QUOTE="TheDude184"][QUOTE="Same_Jeans_On"]Call of Duty- Became a yearly iteration game. Dungeon Defenders- Mana system which doesn't encourage teamwork in a team-based game. Batman AC/AA - Overly repetitive combat.cain006

Yeah I know you can counter the attacks, jump away or over the opponent, but that's about it. 90% of batman combat was pressing a mouse button and a direction towards the enemy, the computer does the rest.TheDude184

Deus Ex: boss fights. The game encourages you to play through either as run and gun, stealth, or hacking. I was a combonation of stealth and hacking, but for boss fights, you have to run and gun, which my skill tree wasn't equipped for. As a result, I had to place points into run and gun skills that I never used outside of boss fights. Game was great outside of the boss fights.

Mass Effect 1 - Terrible inventory managment
Bethesda games (fallout 3, new vegas, skyrim, oblivion)- The bugs, they make great games, but jeez, they need a solid year of testing
Portal 2 - it ended
Mirrors Edge - combat/gun play, felt tacked on, uncessary and badly handled
Battlefield 3 - The whole game launching system and playing with freinds is just terrible
GTAIV - relationships with friends, ugh
Civ 5 - removing religion

Witcher 1 - slow and random first actDanielDust

Could not agree any less. The first act in The Witcher was one of my favorites. Everything about it was awesome.

[QUOTE="DanielDust"] Witcher 1 - slow and random first actPrexxus

Could not agree any less. The first act in The Witcher was one of my favorites. Everything about it was awesome.

[QUOTE="DanielDust"] Witcher 1 - slow and random first actPrexxus

Could not agree any less. The first act in The Witcher was one of my favorites. Everything about it was awesome.

Torment: The combat.

Guild Wars: The expansions screwing up the near perfect balance that Prophecies had for PVP.

Neverwinter Nights 2: That camera makes me want to kill kittens.

Fallout: Clunky interface.

Guild Wars 2: I'm not in the beta yet :(.

[QUOTE="Prexxus"]

[QUOTE="DanielDust"] Witcher 1 - slow and random first actDanielDust

Could not agree any less. The first act in The Witcher was one of my favorites. Everything about it was awesome.

The introduction actually makes perfect sense if you have read the whole series. This isn't Marvel where characters just come back to life for the hell of it, the Witcher tries to explain Geralt coming back in a less obvious fashion. The rest of the game speaks for itself as it is a self-contained thing.

I am (was) playing the game, I shouldn't have to read books to get an idea of the game, it's a bad act and introduction to the game period.Did they introduce a "fan" factor into game sense and game quality? no

I do have the books, but if you're not Polish, then you're aware that only a few books are translated, and I will not start reading till all of them will be in English.

Just Cause 1 & 2- The game is awesome, but the driving feels terrible

Prototype- The buildings look like they were made of clay

Tekken 6- Huge loading times

Spore- Should have bigger phases

Grand Theft Auto IV- Should have airplanes

Crysis 2 went on rails for the most part.

Ditto on the Oblivion enemies leveling with you.

Mass Effect the tedious rover driving parts.

Mass Effect 2, the ore mining.

Swat 4, running or even walking slowly increases the crosshair to the size of a small child's swimming pool even in a narrow hallway.

Starcraft 2 multiplayer has limited the units available in single player.

Far Cry 2 enemies can be heard too clearly as though right beside you when 50 yards away.

Medal of Honor, the begging for ammo, and the poor hit detection at times.

Rage, confused about whether it wants to be a racing game or a shooter.

The combat in Arcanum was pretty terrible even when switched to turn-based.

The end of VM: Bloodlines feels rushed (because it was) and it completely changes the way the game plays.

The beginning part of Wizardry 8 can be brutally difficult for new players.

Battlefield 3- The godawful campaign that just aped Call of Duty every step of the way and took anything that was unique or fun in the Bad Company games away.

Crysis- The brain dead AI that do everything from surviving multiple headshots without moving, to throwing a grenade right next to their own explosive barrels.

Condemned- The simplistic melee design (first game)

Call of Duty series post WaW- Lack of PC support and incredibly unbalanced multiplayer and way too linear campaign

SPYDER0416

Just Cause 1 & 2 - both of these games are great and very intense, but the shooting really changed the whole experience for the worse.

TheDude184

Just Cause 2 had the problem of infinite enemy spawns and the AI knew exactly where you are when you are hiding.

There was one time when I was trying to hide from a helicopter in a dense forest, I moved far enough away I would assume there would be no way it could find me. No it hovered right over me and started shooting.

I remember checking a corner for enemy AI and there was none there. I turned around for one second then turned back there was five that just appeared in the same spot I just checked. This game should have had like some kind of time where more enemies would appear after five minutes.

Skyrim - Combat lacks depth and the difficulty is all over the place in early levels, then becomes too easy. Quests are too MMOish and factions aren't believable thanks to being able to rank up to the top inside a few hours.

GTA IV - After San Andreas, gameplay feels too restrictive. Story drags on far longer than it should.

Half Life 2 - Puzzles are too easy. Combat a little flat.

Bioshock - Combat feels flat... every FPS RPG-heavy hybrid suffers from this actually.

WoW - Forever plagued by balance issues, too many short, unsatisfying quests.

Mass Effect 2 - A lot of environments look very blocky and out of place, especially the end part. Too easy on insane. Main story feels unconvincing, as though there's no real threat, there's no real villain, ore mining is 100 times worse than the Mako. Too many characters on the ship; you don't bond with any of the characters as much as the first game.

I really liked a lot of what Magicka was trying to do, and it's art style, sound effects and soundtrack were really great. But the save system is completely and utterly broken (it won't save your progress in a chapter if you quit the game before finishing a chapter), so that totally spoilt the game for me. How am I supposed to know if I have time to finish the chapter if I don't know where the end is?

GTA IV - horrific checkpoint system made worse by non-regenerating heatlh causing the game to be overy difficult

Saints Row 2 - horrible optimization

Fallout: New Vegas - clunky combat outside of VATS

For me recently, it has been syndicate. This could've had awesome multiplayer similar to halo or crysis 2. In the end the multiplayer turned out to be co-op missions, which were not bad, just a bit repetitive

[QUOTE="TheDude184"]Yeah I know you can counter the attacks, jump away or over the opponent, but that's about it. 90% of batman combat was pressing a mouse button and a direction towards the enemy, the computer does the rest.cain006

GTA IV - horrific checkpoint system made worse by non-regenerating heatlh causing the game to be overy difficult

Saints Row 2 - horrible optimization

Fallout: New Vegas - clunky combat outside of VATS

with_teeth26

[QUOTE="cain006"]

[QUOTE="TheDude184"]Yeah I know you can counter the attacks, jump away or over the opponent, but that's about it. 90% of batman combat was pressing a mouse button and a direction towards the enemy, the computer does the rest.TheDude184

:o The blasphemy! (just kidding)

I found it all very satisfying. Stalking a large group of thugs, choosing which gadgets to use to take out the armed ones, jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle, countering 3 guys atacking you at the same time. I could do it all day. Just writing about it makes me want to play it again.

[QUOTE="TheDude184"][QUOTE="cain006"]You never used the gadgets? No wonder you thought the game was boring, half the fun was chaining together a bunch of different attacks.

makryu

:o The blasphemy! (just kidding)

I found it all very satisfying. Stalking a large group of thugs, choosing which gadgets to use to take out the armed ones, jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle, countering 3 guys atacking you at the same time. I could do it all day. Just writing about it makes me want to play it again.

I just finished the story mode and all riddler challenges for Arkham Asylum. That game's amazing. I'm getting Arkham City ASAP. To the guy saying it felt like a shooter on rails, you clearly were not even trying to do anything special, or you've never actually played a shooter on rails.

[QUOTE="cain006"]

[QUOTE="TheDude184"]Yeah I know you can counter the attacks, jump away or over the opponent, but that's about it. 90% of batman combat was pressing a mouse button and a direction towards the enemy, the computer does the rest.TheDude184

GTA IV - horrific checkpoint system made worse by non-regenerating heatlh causing the game to be overy difficult

Saints Row 2 - horrible optimization

Fallout: New Vegas - clunky combat outside of VATS

with_teeth26